Helpful Tips

Some Helpful Tips and Rules for Parents

05/07/2021

 

At Taarana, we strive to help parents with special needs children by nurturing them with lifelong skills in hopes to help them make a smooth transition into society and lead meaningful lives. With the help of our experienced teachers, we share with you these tips in raising your child.

  • Some skills are essential or pre-requisite for learning further skills such as toileting, self-help skills, attending skills etc. Make sure these skills are taught so they can lead an independent life.
  • Have clear expectations. Convey it to the child explicitly with pictures, words, signs or any other mode that the child will understand.
  • Create opportunities to encourage child-centred communication.
  • Have a structured time at home too. Follow the schedule while intermittently changing the activities to teach flexibility.
  • Allow downtime or leisure time. Create or teach them leisure activities.
  • Make sure the leisure activities are timed as our children tend to go overboard sometimes. For example, TV time, computer time etc.
  • The child learns better from hands on experience or natural environmental teaching. Take them out. Engage with them. Have fun. Have a bond and interact with them at any given opportunity.
  • Break teaching into small components. One step at a time. Praise and encourage for small achievements. Positive reinforcement works best.
  • Use specific words to give instructions. Too many words will confuse the child.
  • Analyse what you are targeting to teach is a realistic, functional skill.
  • Notice the progress and note it down regularly. You will be amazed to see the small steady progress your child is making.
  • If you think the child has not progressed, change strategies or teaching methodology to accommodate the child’s learning.
  • Try errorless teaching. What is it? It is guaranteeing that my child does not fail at a given task by helping him along until my help is no longer necessary. It is about providing prompts.
  • Fade prompts. What is it? As my child shows that he is beginning to understand what is expected of him, I need to slowly reduce the help I have been giving.
  • Consistency is the key to success. Never give up. We all together can bring in progress.